WORK Is it good or bad? On the one hand, worries about unemployment, and cries of triumph at having got more people back to work. On the other, a report that since 1979 the increasing productivity of car factories has enabled them almost to halve the number of people employed to 289,000 – and that,… read more »
Ayatollah Khomeini has done almost as good a job for Selman Rushdie’s book as the British Government did for Peter Wright’s and the Chicago authorities, in their own smaller way, are trying to help two young artists, David Nelson and Scott Tyler. As his graduation exercise for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,… read more »
OLD CAUSES and old slogans are losing their appeal; the bright young people no longer see themselves leading the masses into violent revolution. Gender and race resonate more loudly than class. Peterloo may still rank above Waterloo, but the emancipation of the slaves shines brighter than either, while the formerly exploited workers of western Europe… read more »
FEW OVER MANY Those who maintain that society embodies mainly the preferences of the ruling few land themselves with the task of explaining how these manage to impose their will. They sometimes claim that it is done by force, but again, how? In The Politics of Obedience (Montreal, Black Rose Press 1975), Etienne de in… read more »
Conrad Hopman, The Book of Future Changes – living in balance in the electronic age. London: Institute for Social Inventions 1988. A4, 153 pages, perfect bound in glossy wrappers. The edition said to be limited but the number of copies issued not given. £9.95 (£14.95 libraries and institutions). Conrad Hopman’s title echoes that of the… read more »
The NEW STATESMAN & SOCIETY of 14 October, in its editorial, describes the consequences of Mr. Nigel Lawson’s current policy as “alarming.” This is the trouble: Sociologists (not that anyone listens to them nowadays) have long been predicting the emergence in Britain of a “two-thirds one third” society. It is one in which a majority… read more »
Judy Greenway recently addressed an anarchist discussion group on the subject: INVISIBLE WOMEN: PROBLEMS IN ANARCHIST-FEMINIST HISTORY. Her theme was that although the anarchist movement could hardly have functioned without the women selling literature, writing, taking printed sheets from the press and performing other unsung tasks, most of them remain unmentioned in the histories. Using… read more »
Edmund Leach has written an article on racism (ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, August 1988) which substitutes thoughtful enquiry for the well-intentioned waffle so often elicited by the subject. He finds its earliest recorded appearance in Genesis Chapter 9, verses 18-19: And the sons of Noah that went forth from the ark were Shem Ham and Japheth …… read more »
‘THE POWER OF AN IDEOLOGY LIES IN ITS CAPACITY TO ACTIVATE ITS ADHERENTS AND TO CHANGE THE WORLD.’ This is the complete passage: The power of a theology lies in its capacity to offer believers a knowledge of God and so to make possible an escape from the corrupted earth and a transcendental communion. The… read more »
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